Gloom and doom permeated the room.
The biggest constraint on the ocean fishery is an 8% cap on LCR coho impacts. One troller bemoaned that ESA-listing of LCR coho was rejected because the fish have already been functionally extirpated... his point was why should the ocean be constrained by fish that are already toast?
That troller's remarks reminded me of that old thread we had about Stilly chinook just hanging by a thread. Somewhere in all that discussion T-Rip said:
That being the case, we're in a holding pattern on those fish...at best, they will remain exactly at replacement levels, and will continue to limit all the other fisheries...sport, commercial, and tribal...that catch any of them in Washington waters.
Unless the habitat is improved, that's how it will be until they are finally deemed functionally extinct (i.e., "written off"), and then the rest of the fisheries can go on their merry way...assuming another stock hasn't stepped into the spotlight as the next "about to go extinct PS Chinook run" and limit the fisheries.
If any group wants to have a positive effect on increasing PS sportfisheries by increasing Stilly Chinook numbers, then that group will have to play a positive role in increasing functional spawning and rearing habitat in the Stillaguamish Basin.
Period.
If in fact the wild LCR coho are functionally extinct, I'm wondering what's keeping fish managers from "writing them off" and going on their merry way?
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"Let every angler who loves to fish think what it would mean to him to find the fish were gone." (Zane Grey)
"If you don't kill them, they will spawn." (Carcassman)
The Keen Eye MDLong Live the Kings!
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